Now go to a typical psychologicalmuscle tension, heart rate, bloodMeanwhile, in the United States, veryjournal, our best journals. Mostpressure, skin conductance. The pointfew therapists practice psychoanalysis,investigators spend a few years [on ais the more data you have, the morebecause the 50 years are up.

problem] and when they get frustratedlikely you will understand the puzzle

So what type of therapy do youthink will be big next in theUnited States?Therapy over the Internet. I can predictwhat’s going to happen.

they shift to another topic. Theybecome impatient.

Psychologists also need to usevaried methods and combine allkinds of techniques to learn. But 70

you’re trying to solve. Every biologistunderstands that.

Do you have any favoriteexamples of psychologists whohave gotten it right?You’re going to have papersshowing how effectivetherapy over the Internet is,because it’s new. And then in

50 years, no one will be doing

“How could an investigatormake a significant discoveryA nice example would beMarta Kutas at the Universityof California, San Diego, whohas studied the N400 waveformin the event-related potential.

it anymore.But the larger point

by examining only whatMarta has clarified what thatwaveform means, because sheis that obviously one sizetreatment can’t fit all. I’mwilling to bet that there aresome depressives for whomcognitive behavioral therapy

people say? Humans havebeen listening to humans for

150,000 years, and we still don’tstuck with it. Because everyphenomenon in nature isdifficult to detect accurately,she realized she had to vary allkinds of contexts to learn whatis the perfect therapy. Butuntil we find out for which

understand human behavior.”she did.

Another example is Gerarddepressives that is true, we’regoing to continue this way,where some people get better and somedon’t.

At the end of the book, you
lay out what you call “modest
suggestions” to improve
psychological research. Where
did they come from?

Right now, I’m reading the Nobel
laureate acceptance speeches in
biology from 1996 to 2000. Now, in
every one of these cases, what did
these investigators do? They picked a
problem that was puzzling and they
began to probe it. And their first probes
were rarely successful — it took them

10, 15, 20 years. The man who studiedhemoglobin worked for 30 years beforehe discovered its structure.

percent or more of the research on
humans by research psychologists
uses one method, and that method is
most of the time a verbal report on a
questionnaire.

Now think about that. How could
an investigator make a significant
discovery by examining only what
people say? Humans have been
listening to humans for 150,000 years,
and we still don’t understand human
behavior.

It’s absolutely necessary to gathermore than one source of data, nomatter what you’re studying. Youhave to combine verbal report withbehavioral observations, and, betteryet, combine it with behavioralobservations and some biology: fMRI,Bruder of Columbia University.

Bruder examined the patients
that were sent to him with a diagnosis
of depressive disorder and tested them
with EEG. He found that the ones who
got better with SSRIs were left-frontal
active and the ones who didn’t were
right-frontal active. That’s a beautiful
example of combining the verbal
description of the symptoms with a
biological measure. That strategy helps
the clinician and scientist separate two
kinds of depressives. One profits from
SSRIs, the other doesn’t.

Are more people looking at thesephysiological measures as thetechnology improves?Yes. Compared with 20 years ago, manymore psychologists are gathering fMRI[data]. They gather fMRI data and